Vinicius L.

I was going to leave San Francisco and fly to Sao Paulo in Brazil. I had booked a flight with Cheapoair more than 1 month in advance that was going to have a connection in Toronto. When I went to do my check-in I discovered that I needed a visa that I didn't have to get into Canada. After some discussion I ended up losing my flight. But this was my fault. I should have searched more about needing a visa before this day.

The problem with Cheapoair comes next. I called Cheapoair to see what I could do. Now my stress begun, because ALMOST everytime I called them, I had to wait at least 2 minutes of annoying music until I could reach an attendant, and about HALF of the times the dial was missed (before or during talking with an attendant).

Now, the times when I reached an attendant, somethings happened: the first attendant was talking so low and in low energy (keep in mind I was at an airport and was not so easy to hear low voices in my phone), it seemed he was dying and would rather not be working. I had to end the call and try again. Next, when I reached attendants that were helpful and I was in the middle of the call, the dial was missed (happened twice). When I tried getting back to them (I knew their names), I was attended by other attendants and they didn't even knew the names of their work colleagues and weren't able to transfer my call. The fourth time I reached an attendant, I was attended by a woman with heavy Asian accent. I have absolutely nothing against Asian accents, but since English is not my first language and I was in a loud airport, I had a very hard time understanding everything she said. Still I had no choice, and proceeded to obtain her help.

I learned that I had completely lost my flight and money, even though I had purchased travel insurance with them prior. The only thing Cheapoair could do was to book me a new flight and I would have to pay the full price again. No other options. She only offered my two options, both were more than two times more expensive than the flight I had lost (this was understandable since I was purchasing a same-day flight) and I would have to wait about 10 hours in the airport.

I needed to fly that day, so I had to accept my faith and buy another flight. Since I'm from Brazil, the only way I could pay was to use an international credit card. I gave her my card info and then was told that I had to wait for them to verify the card info. They wanted to call my bank in Brazil and check with them, which gave me a lot of work, since THEY MADE ME call my bank first and find someone that could speak English with them.
After I found and passed the information to them, I waited about 2 hours for the woman to call me back (I had no way to call them since I couldn't reach her using Cheapoair's number and nobody knew how to transfer me to her). She told my the card had been accepted and in under 1 hour my flight info would be e-mailed to me. I thought that my nightmare was finally over and I could relax and wait for my flight. After almost 1 hour, I received an automatic call in my phone saying that my card had been rejected. I tried calling Cheapoair about 10 times, but again, infinite minutes waiting with annoying music and missed calls. It was completely impossible to talk with an attendant this time.

I decided to give up on Cheapoair and since I knew my credit card had not been charged, I decided to buy another flight directly with an airline company. The purchase directly with the airline company was extremely simple and easy, AND was almost $1,000 CHEAPER than the flight Cheapoair had offered me earlier! I couldn't believe it! I took this new flight on that same say and finally made it home.

I think I never had a more stressful and negative experience with a company in my life than the one I had with Cheapoair. I wish that no one ever has to go through such a nightmare as I did. In the end, the solution was simple and SO much cheaper: to just buy from the airline company and ignore Cheapoair.